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So many peculiar means of getting lost,
testing negative to the acid of time,
those stories you do not care enough for:
the spendthrift eking out a living on
a fish-farm in the Philippines, the engineer
in China on whom it all depends or
your fossicking around for the lucky strike
your hiding out in the Caves of Melville.
No prize for dancing equally well with all
but anyone can understand the smiling
invitation of a cushion made of stone.
You like the sound of her half-a-woman and your
half-a-man raising each other’s dear illusions.
There is a word for this you’ve not yet found.

Mark Prendergast lives in Preston. His poetry has been published in Famous Reporter, paper wasp, Rabbit and page seventeen.